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Conan the Barbarian (1982 movie)
Conan the Barbarian is a 1982 film by director John Milius and is recognized as the breakthrough of actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is loosely based on the Conan stories by Robert E. Howard. It was followed in 1984 by a lighter, more child-friendly, but less successful sequel, Conan the Destroyer. While its sequel is a much more traditional sword and sorcery tale that includes magic, monsters, and fantastical events, Conan the Barbarian is set in a relatively realistic bronze and iron age setting with only a few supernatural elements. Synopsis The film begins with a young Cimmerian boy, Conan, witnessing the destruction of his village and the death of his parents at the hand of warlord Thulsa Doom. The narration tells, "Who knows what they came for, weapons of steel or murder? It was never known for the leader went to the south." The battle standard carried by the invaders, a snake with two heads, is burned into the memory of young Conan. Conan is sold into slavery with the rest of the children from his village and forced to preform intense manual labor. While the other children die, Conan grows strong, and is eventually sold and forced to fight as a gladiator. One night, however, his new owner spontaneously sets him free. From that point, Conan dedicates his life to exacting revenge on Thulsa Doom. He travels the world looking for the warlord's symbol, the two-headed snake. Along the way he meets two companions, Subotai and Valeria, both thieves. They soon learn that a doomsday cult has arisen that makes extensive use of snake symbolism. While breaking into one of the cult's towers and stealing several artifacts, Conan confirms the cult's connection to Thulsa Doom after encountering the same two-headed snake symbol. After the heist, the three thieves are then offered a tremendous fortune by King Osric to retrieve his daughter who has joined the snake cult. Conan, however, not content with the pursuit of wealth, abandons his companions to pursue Thulsa Doom. Conan eventually locates the center of the cult, a place of pilgrimage called the Mountain of Power, with the help of a hermitic wizard. Disguised as a priest, Conan sneaks into a ceremony at the mountain, but is quickly discovered as an impostor, captured, beaten, and taken before Thulsa Doom. Though many years have passed, Doom has not aged since the attack on Conan's village. His philosophy, however, has changed dramatically since his years as a warlord. He explains to Conan that the destruction of his village was part of his pursuit of "steel", which he once thought to be the key to power; only later did he realized that "flesh" is the stronger substance. Since the revelation, he has gained much greater power by controlling people through his cult. After explaining himself, Doom orders that Conan be crucified. Hung from a tree in the desert, Conan is rescued by Valeria and Subotei just before his death, and brought back to health with the help of the wizard. The three then return to mountain of power and rescue King Osric's daughter. While escaping, however, Thulsa Doom kills Valeria with an arrow made from a venomous snake. Thulsa Doom personally leads an expedition to recover the King's daughter, re-donning the same steel armor he had long since abandoned. Conan, Subotai, and the Wizard successfully repel Doom's attack, and he alone is able to escape. In the final scene, Conan sneaks into the mountain of power and decapitates Doom in front of thousands of his devotees, revealing their godhead as an imposter. An epilogue states that Conan later went on to become a great king by his own hand, adding, "but that is another story." Relationship to Robert E. Howard's stories In spite of the title, the movie is a radical departure from Robert E. Howard's Conan series and owes much more to the original script and direction of John Milius. It draws only a few major elements from its literary namesake, including: * The spoken prologue, "Between the time the Ocean drank Atlantis and the rise of the Sons of Aryas..." * The reference to Conan's people as Cimmerians, and his father's blacksmith profession * Conan's devotion to the god Crom * The crucifixion episode, which is reasonably true to the events in A Witch Shall Be Born * The scene where Conan climbs the tower, inspired by The Tower of the Elephant Other aspects of the film are drawn sporadically from different pieces of Howard's works, though many of those are conspicuously inconsistent with his Conan character. For example, while a character named Valeria appears in Red Nails, the film character's attachment to Conan and her return from the dead to save his life are more akin to Bêlit of "Queen of the Black Coast". More disturbing to Howard fans, certain elements seem to have been borrowed from non-Conan sources, including the face-changing Snake Folk and the Thulsa Doom character which originated in Howard's Kull stories. Similarly, Conan's encounter with the witch in the film bears some similarity to Worms of the Earth from yet another of Howard's series, Bran Mak Morn. Thulsa Doom's monologue about fearing the dark are also drawn from the work. Yet other elements of the film have no relation whatsoever to Howard's stories, including the "Riddle of Steel", the Black Sun Cult of Seth, Conan's adolescence in slavery, and his service as a gladiator in the East. Howard's Conan was still with his tribe in Cimmeria around the time he was 15 or 16, taking part in the destruction of the Aquilonian outpost of Venarium. Moreover, the Conan character portrayed by Schwarzenegger displays little "panther like agility," nor does he have the characteristic "black mane" and "volcanic blue eyes" of Howard's original (although Schwarzenegger's eyes are in fact blue). Although the inconsistencies with the stories turned-off many fans, the film does, to a certain extent, reflects the "spirit" of the Howard's Hyborian Age. Though the film lacks many of the qualities of the literary character, the story is richer than often credited and includes rich symbolism and themes. The special edition DVD includes some insightful commentary by the director and Schwarzenegger. Novelization * Conan the Barbarian by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter (May 1982) Characters and cast For a large budget film, the cast of Conan the Barbarian includes an unusual number of then-inexperienced actors. Dancer Sandahl Bergman and surfer Gerry Lopez were cast in major supporting roles as Conan's closest companions. In addition to Schwarzenegger, the cast also included several famous bodybuilders including William Smith, Sven-Ole Thorsen, and Franco Columbu, as well as former Oakland Raiders star Ben Davidson. * Conan: Arnold Schwarzenegger * Conan's father: William Smith * King Osric: Max von Sydow * Pictish scout: Franco Columbu * Priest: Jack Taylor * The Princess: Valérie Quennessen * Rexor: Ben Davidson * Subotai: Gerry Lopez * Thorgrim: Sven-Ole Thorsen * Thulsa Doom: James Earl Jones * Valeria: Sandahl Bergman * The Witch: Cassandra Gava * The Wizard/Narrator: Mako Locations * Music Originally, producer Dino de Laurentiis had planned a soundtrack of pop music for the movie, but was eventually persuaded by Milius to use a full orchestral score. For this purpose, Milius hired Basil Poledouris, a former classmate from the film department at the University of Southern California, and tasked him to make "a continuous musical drama." * The result was a choral and orchestral soundtrack that fills nearly every moment of the film, with pronounced use of leitmotifs to portray mood and character. The violent early portions of the movie are filled with intense pieces including "Anvil of Crom", played by 24 french horns, stings and timpani, and "Riders of Doom", loosely inspired by "O Fortuna" and other portions of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. Thulsa Doom's theme, which recurs throughout the film, is based on the Gregorian chant "Dies Irae". A number of quieter pieces fill the middle of the movie, including "Civilization", "The Leaving" and "The Search", before the music again intensifies for a series of battle sequences at the end of the film. Several of the pieces, including the "Anvil of Crom" are frequently used in the movie trailers of other films by Universal Pictures. Much of the film's music was also reused in Conan the Destroyer. Soundtrack album track listing # "Anvil of Crom" # "Riddle of Steel" / "Riders of Doom" # "Gift of Fury" # "Wheel of Pain" # "Atlantean Sword" # "Theology" / "Civilization" # "Wifeing" # "The Leaving" / "The Search" # "Mountain of Power" # "Tree of Woe" # "Recovery" # "The Kitchen" / "The Orgy" # "Funeral Pyre" # "Battle of the Mounds" # "Death of Rexor" # "Orphans of Doom" / "The Awakening" Trivia In the 1914 silent film Cabiria, a slave named Maciste pushes a mill wheel for ten years just as Conan does. Conan is the anglisicized version of the Irish name Conán,meaning "Little Wolf" or "Little Hound".There are several characters who bear the name Conán in Irish mythology,most notably Conán Maol Mac Mórna.While uncommon,the name is still used in Ireland. References # ^ Conan the Barbarian Original Motion Picture Soundtrack liner notes by Kevin Mulhall. #''Internet Movie Database:'' Conan the Barbarian #''All Movie Guide:'' Conan the Barbarian Category:Movie